
ClassSJ-EM 

BooIc.j_IL^ 



COPYRIGHT 



-i 



STOCK AND STALKS 

A Book for the Dairy Farmer 



BY 

J. R. ROBERTS 

President Roberts Sanitary Dairy 
Lincoln and Sioux City 



Henry Westfall, Sales Agent, 126 So. 11th Street 
Midwest Bldg., Lincoln, Nebraska 

(All Rights Reserved) 



l\ ^ 



Copyright, 1921 

BY 
J. R. ROBERTS 



g)CLA605924 



MRR-l 192! 



STOCK AND STALKS 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

INTENSIVE VERSUS BY-PRODUCT DAIRYING 1 

CHAPTER n 

THE DAIRY TYPE _ 17 

Capacity 
Texdexcies 
Physical Defects 
Diseases 

CHAPTER ni 

THE PURE BRED SIRE 23 

CHAPTER IV 

WHAT TO FEED 26 

Chemical Analysis 

Balanced Rations 

Pastures 

Hay 

Corn Fodder 

Silage Without Corn 

Silage 

Grain Feed 

Prepared Feeds 

CHAPTER V 

HOW TO FEED 44 

Balanced Rations 

Water 

Calf and Heifer Feeding 

Chemical Analysis 

Rations for the Dairy Cow 



Contents 
CHAPTER VI 

VARIATIONS IN MILK TESTS 56 

CHAPTER VII 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CONSTRUCTING A BARN 61 

CHAPTER VIII 

MILKING 63 

CHAPTER IX 

MILK PRODUCTS 66 

Butter 

Cheese 

Cottage Cheese 

Cream 

Skim Milk 

Whey 

CHAPTER X 

MARKET MILK 74 

Weight of Milk 
Legal Requirements 
Cleanliness 
Sanitation 
Cooling Milk 

CHAPTER XI 

EXPERIMENTS BEING TRIED OUT ON OUR DAIRY 
FARM 83 

CHAPTER XII 

DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW 92 



INTRODUCTION 

In writing this booklet I hope to put into it in- 
formation valuable to the average farmer who keeps 
cows. I make no claim for this little book as an 
addition to dairy science. It is rather a subtrac- 
tion. I mean that I have been careful to include 
only the most essential information. Where a great 
mass of scientific data is gathered, it takes discrimi- 
nation to distinguish between matters of great and 
less importance. To do this discriminating and to 
point out the most essential things, as I see them, 
is the purpose of this undertaking. 

Those who wish more detailed information can 
easily find it prepared by those who have studied 
this matter in detail. I have not. In my experi- 
ence in the dairy business I have tried to use to the 
best and most practical advantage the scientific 
knowledge that I could acquire from others. My 
experience has all been an effort to apply science to 
business. It has been a business experience, not 
one of research and investigation. There is much 
that I have found to be of no particular use to me. 



Introduction 

but there are many things that I have found to be 
of great importance. 

Science digs out facts, figures, data, knowledge, 
or whatever it may be called. To take facts of 
science and make use of them in business is one 
thing which Webster's dictionary calls an art. This 
booklet, then, may not be classed as science for the 
writer is not so very scientific; it is not in itself 
a work of art for the writer is not strong on artis- 
tic ability; but is written on the art of keeping 
cows and paying the feed bills. 



Stock and Stalks 



CHAPTER I 



INTENSIVE VERSUS BY-PRODUCT 
DAIRYING 

Agriculture as a science is comparatively new. 
It is not like civil engineering, for instance, which 
is taught about alike in all places, and much of it 
the same as was taught a generation ago. Since I 
can remember most of what is now known about 
dairy science has been discovered. It is not sur- 
prising, therefore, that as the various ideas and 
doctrines come out they have both adherents and 
opponents. It takes time to clarify a situation and 
to prove what is the right conclusion. Some blame 
our agricultural colleges for not knowing more and 
knowing it sooner, and for spreading what we now 
know to have been in some cases misinformation. 
But the course taken was really the only one pos- 
sible. Experiment stations have to try out a lot 
of theories in order to find which are wrong and 



2 Stock and Stalks 

which are right. At present there are many things 
still unknown and much difference of opinion. If 
the discussion which follows seems to differ in some 
respects with recognized authorities, I still think 
that I may be right; and if wrong, I claim as good 
a right as any one else to make mistakes. 

Here are some things to think about. At one 
time there were more real dairy cattle in Lancaster 
county than there are at present. There were fair- 
ly large herds of grade Holsteins producing milk 
where now there are scarcely any cattle at all. In- 
tensive dairying at one time had a fine start in Lan- 
caster county, but now there is not a herd large 
enough to be called a dairy, except those owned by 
purebred breeders. The city milk supply comes 
from a large number of farmers who produce milk 
as a side issue. The methods of feeding and car- 
ing for cattle on these farms is in the main con- 
trary to the instructions given by the dairy depart- 
ment at the State Farm. The men who made dairy- 
ing a business here were learning and following agri- 
cultural college methods. They had good grade 
dairy cattle and produced fully twice as much per 
cow as do the farmers now in the business. They 
all quit because it did not pay. 



Intensive Versus By-Product Dairying 3 

It so happens that I was one of the men thus en- 
gaged. I had a fine herd of fifty high-grade Hol- 
steins that were producing as much milk as is now 
being produced by thirty of our average dairy farm- 
ers. My herd was sold after losing money for two 
years. We were in a cow-testing association at the 
time and the fine records made by these cows helped 
to sell them at a public sale. Right in sight of the 
agricultural college all that had been accomplished 
seemed to fade away, and the old red cow, which 
dairy science has tried for a generation to kill, 
came back to the very skirts of the city. Just 
now if every dairy cow in Nebraska would be 
slaughtered, their milk would hardly be missed 
but if the old red cow would go on a strike, not a 
wheel in any creamery of the state would be tunn- 
ing next week. 

Why this remarkable turn of events? Well, there 
are two theories. One of these lets the agricul- 
tural college and all of us out without disgrace 
and is something of a slam on the farmer. The 
other gives the farmer credit for having more 
sense than we had. Certain it is that the farmer 
milking his beef cow produced milk for less than 
we Holstein men could do it. The first theory is 



4 Stock and Stalks 

that the farmer did not know his costs and there- 
fore kept right on while the deficiency came out 
of his hide. The second is that the farmer had 
us beat on the cost of production. Is one or the 
other of these theories correct? It must be. It 
would be like taking the hot end of a poker for me 
to argue that the farmer is a fool and to have one 
of his number remark that, even though he was, I 
went out of business against his competition. 
Some one else will have to argue that side. I have 
a different explanation. 

In my judgment the difference came about in the 
general rise in price of labor, grain, and alfalfa. 
The milk that we produced was like a garment 
cut out of new cloth — it all cost real money. The 
farmer's milk was largely produced from corn 
stalks, wheat pasture, stubble fields, and draws 
pastured — material that must either be turned into 
milk or wasted. It had scarcely any market value. 
Our methods and our cattle were superior to his 
in many ways, but not enough to make up the dif- 
ference in the cost of feed. The common method 
on the farm is to pasture corn stalks during the 
winter. It is a very wasteful method of feeding 
but it requires no labor. The cows gather the corn 



Intensive Versus By-Product Dairying 5 

that was missed in the field and eat the leaves and 
husks. Few cows may be kept on a farm where 
such methods are in use, but figuring the stalk of 
no value, such methods produce the cheapest but- 
ter fat in the world. The farmer had us beat on 
the cost of production. He did not feed grain and 
forget to figure its value. He fed the grain that 
the buskers left in the field. It had no value ex- 
cept as it came to the milk pail. 




When the Dairy Cow Needs a Friend 



6 Stock and Stalks 

At one time I worked on a ranch in western 
Colorado where a large number of range cattle 
were wintered. Alfalfa in that community was 
selling for three dollars a ton, but we fed it to the 
weaker cattle only. The strong ones could live on 
sage brush which cost nothing. Sage brush was 
not a better feed. It was not nearly so good, but 
the advantages offset the disadvantages. So it 
was with us. The advantages of the two systems 
were weighed and ours found wanting. 

The average farmer's cow is a "scrub." She 
usually goes dry for three or four months of the 
year and, even when fresh, gives about half what 
a developed dairy animal should give. Why do 
farmers persist in milking ''scrubs," then? Have 
we not all told them better? I'll say so! Hol- 
steins and Jerseys are not so rare that farmers 
do not know what they are. Most farmers have 
owned a few but have gone back to the old red 
stand-by. Why? Are we wrong again? 

In Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, and all 
over the east the red cow is disappearing. People 
there do a great deal more of dairying than we do. 
Who knows the business better, they who do dairy- 
ing as a business or we who do not? But argu- 



Intensive Versus By -Product Dairying 7 

ments are of no use when they go against known 
facts. The color of the cow is the result of a con- 
dition. The red cow has been better suited to a 
farmer's conditions and requirements. Dairy cat- 
tle can not rough it like beef or dual-purpose cat- 
tle. Where the custom is to stable feed and give 
good care to cattle, dairy breeds naturally take 
the lead. Where the dairy business is a side is- 
sue, and besides giving milk a cow is expected to 
face cold winds and to withstand periods of semi- 
starvation, the dairy type is not in it. 




The strong, lean, well-developed dairy cows that have 
never been weakened by starvation or cold. 



8 Stock and Stalks 

To understand the cattle business we must under- 
stand the fundamental principles upon which the 
various kinds of cattle are built. Hereford cattle, 
for instance, are a pure beef type. The beef ani- 
mal is trained and perfected in the tendency to 
save everything to itself and to load up with fat 
and muscle. Some Hereford cows can hardly raise 
their calves because of the tendency of the mother 
to save all her nourishment for her own strength 
and protection. The cow boys on the range rarely 
think of milking a cow that has lost her calf. The 
typical beef animals give so little milk that they can 
go dry at any time even on good grass with little or 
no injury to themselves. Some dairy cows would 
die even though sucked by a big husky calf if they 
were not milked, because they give so much more 
than the calf could take. The dairy cow is bred 
and trained for generations to digest all she can 
and to give it all away, keeping nothing with which 
to protect herself against hard times. She builds 
no big muscles with which to climb mountains, or 
wade through mud and snow drifts. The beef ani- 
mal if treated like a dairy cow simply gets fat and 
is finally turned to the butcher. The dairy cow 
treated like a beef cow is a tragedy to behold. I 



Intensive Versus By-Product Dairying 9 

have seen both Holstein and Jersey steers out on 
the range where Hereford cattle stay fat and strong 
and I have heard the cow boys cuss about letting 
them live, for they were more of a ghost than a 
reality. Cussed they were by men and God-for- 
saken, so it would seem. Since even the steers 
can not protect themselves to live where the Here- 
fords will thrive, what can we ever expect of a pro- 
ducing cow? When she has given all away then 
goes up against the period of short pasture or semi- 
starvation, she begins immediately to readjust to 
meet the new conditions. But the work of genera- 
tions can not be undone in a life time and she fails 
to meet the emergency and loses the vitality she 
naturally possesses. 

The red farmer's cow is often called the dual-pur- 
pose animal. She is about half way between the 
beef and the dairy. She protects herself well but 
not to the limit as does the Hereford. She produces 
milk well but not nearly so well as do the highly- 
bred and highly-developed strictly dairy types. Not 
one of these three types of cows will do to substi- 
tute for any other. Each has a place to fill and 
each is the best animal in her place. There is 
nothing more foolish than to substitute the dairy 



10 stock and Stalks 

breeds for common cattle before we substitute the 
dairy man for the farmer or else convert the 
farmer to the dairyman's methods in feeding. The 
corn stalks and waste feed make the cheapest milk 
and the red cow is the most economical means of 
converting such feeds into milk, provided we want 
only a small production with the least possible ef- 
fort. It takes more labor to prepare feed for ani- 
mals and feed it to them than it does to let the 
animals range around over the field and do the best 
they can. If farm dairying is to be carried on in 
the future just as it has been in the past, the red 
cow is the farmer's best friend and he is not a fool 
for recognizing her as such. 

This is not a pet theory of mine. It is a con- 
clusion that I have had to swallow against my will. 
The situation has nothing of promise for the fu- 
ture. If we become a dairy state, we will have to 
put more labor and effort into milk production and 
do more like they do in other states. The stalks 
left standing in the field, feeding but a few thick- 
skinned cattle make the cheapest milk, only in case 
we figure the by-product feeds as of no value. We 
could produce a great deal more cattle for beef and 
for dairy purposes if we utilized what we now 



Intensive Versus By-Prodiict Dairying 11 

waste. If all the corn in our state was shocked 
this year, think how much good feed would remain 
after the grain is husked out. Think how many 
cattle might be wintered. The stalks from one 
acre of average corn if properly conserved yield 
nearly enough rough feed for one cow during the 
entire winter. Fifty acres yield fully enough for 
forty head of cattle. Of course we should use al- 
falfa for part of the ration but alfalfa is our cheap- 
est feed that is not a by-product. Grain will be re- 
quired for cattle that milk, but raising calves and 
keeping dry stock is as much a part of milk pro- 
duction as anything else. All such cattle can be 
well-nourished and developed without grain. It will 
not pay to refine them to such an extent that they 
can not live on rough feed. 

But conditions are changing again. Labor, grain, 
and alfalfa are all coming down and land is high in 
price. We will not long be taking only what we 
can get the easiest. The time is at hand when we 
are going to imitate the packer who saves all but 
the squeal. The conditions existing in the eastern 
states will be found here. I do not know how soon 
but they are coming. It will be a long time before 
the specialized producer can compete with the by- 



12 Stock and Stalks 

product feeder, but the latter is going to save more 
of what he has and use it to better advantage as 
soon as he can get labor. Dairy products are go- 
ing to be in great enough demand to pay the extra 
labor costs. I do not look for all of the system to 
be reversed. The farmer's idea of feeding cattle 
what could be used for nothing else has been and 
will still be his salvation. Those of us who pro- 
duced nothing but milk were wrong, from the 
standpoint of economy, in my opinion. What I look 
for now is a combination between the two systems. 
Cows will be taken care of as well as we cared for 
our high producers, there will be a change in the 
methods of caring for feed, but a large part of 
the feed will be the by-products of other farming 
operations. What is the use of feeding all green- 
backs when we can make use of feed that costs 
nothing? We could produce more milk by using 
specialized methods altogether but we can make 
enough without, and it will be cheaper. 

But the standard methods, that always have 
been and still are taught, are altogether intensive. 
Every one talks of high records. There is not 
enough talk of low-cost records. 

A few years ago there was pubhshed in the Ne- 



Intensive Versus By-Product Dairying 13 

braska Farmer the cow-testing association records 
of herds in Lancaster county. SOme of these herds 
yielded a large production and others yielded much 
less. But the herds that produced less yielded at a 
higher rate of profit. The difference was in the 
amount of grain and expensive foods consumed in 
proportion to the production. During the last few 
years those who have fed grain and alfalfa as we 
used to feed, have found it diflflcult to meet ex- 
penses. We used to be taught that, since a cow re- 
quired so much to maintain her body whether she 
produced milk or not and only the amount she con- 
sumed above that amount could be available for 
milk production, it was well to feed as much grain 
as possible without injuring the cow or reducing 
her flow. But the price of feed must be reckoned, 
as all admit now. And if grain is too high the 
larger proportion of our milk must come from the 
cheaper feeds. At present the grain market looks 
very bad and intensive dairying would be more 
profitable now than it has been for a long time. 

But the combination, which I think is ideal, will 
be the best proposition all of the time. In all fur- 
ther discussions in this booklet I refer to dairy 
breeds exclusively for I believe that the tide is 



14 ■ Stock and Stalks 

turning and if the red cow and the old methods are 
still to take the le^d, it is a waste of time to study 
dairying. If farmers wish to increase their milk 
production and find their way clear to devote more 
time to their cattle, this discussion may be of some 
assistance. 

Dairy cows have certain definite requirements. 
One of the most important of these is that they go 
through no periods in which they do not have all 
they want to eat of at least good grass or good hay 
or roughage. If the grass begins to get a httle 
short in the summer, we must not neglect to feed. 
Another important requirement of the dairy cow is 
that she be not exposed to hardships such as coV'' 
winds and rains. Starvation and storms, these two 
things above all — we must guard the dairy cow 
against. 

I will describe how I think dairying should be 
conducted for the most profit on the farm so that 
the by-products may be utilized to the fullest ex- 
tent practicable and at the same time the dairy type 
cattle may be kept producing to good advantage. I 
am not inventing this system, for I am describing 
the common practice of the people in the dairy 
states. In Wisconsin, Michigan, arid Minnesota cat- 



Intensive Veisus By-Product Dairying 15 

tie are kept largely on by-products. In the cheap 
feed lies the profits. 

Elsewhere I have described my own methods of 
handling pasture, the idea of which came from Eu- 
rope. But as to winter feeding, the whole eastern 
part of the United States sets a good example. I 
would want one or two silos, small in diameter but 
tall. I would want one acre of alfalfa and one acre 
of pasture for every cow that I expected to keep. 
If we have a large number of young stock, the pas- 
ture would need to be increased. I would fill these 
silos with corn, grain and all, and use the silage to 
feed only the cows giving milk. I would use a 
Smalley feed cutter with snapping attachments and 
use cut-up dry fodder containing no grain as the 
principal feed for the dry cows and all young stock 
on the place. The farmer usually milks only one- 
half as many cows as he has cattle all together. 
By using 'THnk's Perfect Silo Seal" to protect the 
silage it may be fed all summer whenever needed 
without waste. What stalks remain to be pastured 
may be pastured by the milk cows and so may 
wheat be pastured during good weather. I would 
depend upon by-product feed for dry cattle and for 
part of the milk cow's ration. The amount of grain 



16 Stock and Stalks 

that is in corn silage is never too much for any 
cow that is giving milk, but silage, corn and all, is 
too expensive for cattle that are not milking. 

By such methods the eastern farmer easily keeps 
at least twice the number of cattle that the average 
farmer here is now keeping, and still he takes but 
little more of his land away from other farming 
operations. The intensive dairyman uses all that 
he raises for his cows and usually buys some be- 
sides. The by-product farmer in Nebraska has 
been in the habit of setting aside hardly any acre- 
age for the use of his cattle. But the combination 
is positively a success and would have long ago 
been more in use in Nebraska had not the labor 
situation presented difficulties almost impossible to 
overcome. My farm is small and borders on the 
very edge of the city. Intensive dairying is the 
only thing practical for me even though I can not 
expect to produce as cheaply as farmers differently 
situated. I am re-stocking the farm this year. 



CHAPTER II 
THE DAIRY TYPE 

Capacity. The first thing that we look for in a 
dairy cow is capacity — capacity to digest feed and 
to turn that feed into milk. The digestive and 
mammary systems of the cow should be strongly 
developed. On account of the location of these or- 
gans the dairy type of cow is wedge-shaped, being 
wider and deeper at the rear. Her wedge-shaped 
body, however, should be fairly wide over her heart 
and lung section, for she is required to breathe a 
great deal of air and to have great blood circula- 
tion. Her udder and milk veins should be well-de- 
veloped. The four quarters of the udder should be 
fairly uniform in size. Her milk veins are more 
likely to indicate her history than her capacity, for 
no cow has very large veins until they have been 
developed by heavy milk production. Still in all 
good dairy heifers you will find well-established 
milk veins carried fairly well forward. These 
things indicate the capacity of the animal. 

Tendencies. We must now determine her ten- 



18 Stock and Stalks 

dencies. She must not convert her food into beef 
nor must she destroy her energy by nervousness 
and a tendency to too great physical activity. The 
head of the cow should be clean-cut and lean, the 
neck long and lean, and the shoulders narrow at the 
top. The joints should be open so that a man's fist 
could be thrust between the cow's front leg and her 
body. The cow should not be beefy at the rear. 
Even though she be fat she should not be of a 
square beef type. The udder should be attached 
high behind and the thighs should be narrow. In 
fact, we want a cow that is not an "easy keeper" 
but that will milk out clean. The cow should be 
soft skinned and fine haired. Beware of the wild- 
eyed, nervous, quick-moving cow for she wastes her 
energy. Beware of the sluggish cow for she will be 
sluggish in appetite and will convert her feed into 
fat instead of milk. Perhaps the best way to de- 
scribe the disposition of a good dairy cow would be 
to say that she is alert and intelligent but calm and 
sensible. 

Physical Defects. If you find that you have a 
cow with the capacity and the tendency to produce, 
it is time to look for the physical defects in the ani- 
rtial. Probably more men fail to notice physical 



The Dairy Type 19 

defects than any other thing, when buying cattle. 
Begin by examining the mouth of the cow. The 
age of the cow can be approximately told by look- 
ing at the front teeth. If the cow is young, her 
teeth are square, flat, and close together. When 
the cow gets older, they are round and wedge- 
shaped and tend to separate. At about twelve 
years the cow begins to lose some of her front 
teeth. In judging a cow's development and possi- 
bilities her age must always be taken into con- 
sideration. 

The eye must look bright. A sick cow usually 
shows it in her face and in the way she holds her 
head with her nose sticking a little too far forward. 
She has lost her spirit. If the skin is rough, it is 
likely to indicate in some cases poor digestion and 
in other cases coarseness. In either case we do not 
want the cow. The thin form of the good milk 
cow without an ounce of surplus flesh must not give 
the impression of debility, but of efficiency and 
strength. The cow having digestive trouble is 
usually shrunken in the paunch and has the appear- 
ance of her skin being drawn tightly around her 
body in front of the udder. She should not be 
constipated, nor should she have scours. 



20 Stock and Stalks 

The udder should not be meaty. After a cow 
is milked, her udder should be nearly like an empty 
sack. Each teat should be milked to see that it 
contains no evidence of garget. Each quarter of 
the udder should be felt to see that it contains no 
portion slightly more soHd than the others. The 
teats should be examined for slight lumps which 
have usually been caused by rough milking and 
which may make a lot of trouble. 

Diseases. Tuberculosis in cattle is a disease that 
is more contagious among barn-fed cattle than 
among those kept more in the open. In fact, I 
have never heard of range cattle being tubercular. 
Nevertheless, under conditions that exist on the 
average farm, the tuberculosis germ will thrive and 
cause havoc. It pays to be careful not to introduce 
such a disease into the herd. Ofter the fattest, 
sleekest cattle are affected and while they do not 
die from it quickly, yet as it progresses in a herd 
an animal will now and then die from the disease. 
Hogs and even chickens running with the cattle be- 
come affected and much loss results. 

The accuracy of the tuberclin test in the main 
has been established beyond doubt. Laws now re- 
quire that cattle which are shipped from one state 



The Dairy Type 21 

to another be tested, and the infected cattle can not 
be legally shipped except to a slaughter house sub- 
ject to inspection. However, many cattle are 
shipped under false certificates sworn to by un- 
scrupulous veterinaries. The only thing that we 
can do about it is to be careful in buying, deal with 
responsible men and buy the cattle guaranteed. 

The number of cattle infected in Nebraska is 
probably about two per cent in the average farm- 
ing districts and a much higher per centage among 
the strictly dairy herds of some sections. While 
we do not feel that we are ready for a law com- 
pelling all cattle to be tested, we do feel that each 
individual should protect himself and keep his herd 
free from infection. Bovine tuberculosis is not so 
contagious among human beings as it was once 
thought to be. But it is enough so that no further 
argument should be necessary to an owner of stock 
than that his own family or some one else may be 
infected with the disease from the milk. 

Next to tuberculosis, contagious abortion is prob- 
ably the milk producer's worst enemy. I do not 
know of any way for a farmer to detect this dis- 
ease from an animaFs appearance. I usually look 
for evidence, not in the cattle themselves, but on 



22 Stock and Stalks 

the farm premises of the man who has cattle for 
sale. Be suspicious of any cow that does not readily 
get pregnant. When buying fresh cows always en- 
deavor to see the cow's calf. This is not a doctor 
book. I need not discuss the symptoms nor the 
cure. I only wish to warn the buyer to be on the 
lookout. 



CHAPTER III 

THE PURE BRED SIRE 

There is one law of breeding that does not seem 
to be recognized by people generally and in our 
judgment it is of greatest importance. This law- 
is that the influence of the parent animals are not 
equal upon the offspring. This has been noticed in 
human experiences. No child is exactly one-half 
like his father and one-half like his mother, but is 
likely to be much like either one or the other. He 
is likely to be nine-tenths like one parent and one- 
tenth like the other. It is the same in grading live 
stock and this trait in breeding is of the greatest 
advantage to the breeder of grade stock. If the 
calf takes after the sire and the sire is a pure bred 
of strong type, the calf may be nearly as strong in 
producing ability as the pure bred ancestors. On 
the other hand, even pure bred cattle may breed 
back at times, and their offspring resemble some 
distant scrub member in the ancestry. Breeders 
are well aware of this fact and try very hard to 
keep all inferior cattle entirely eliminated from 



24 Stock and Stalks 

their line of breeding. It is important that they 
should for their line should breed as true as possi- 
ble, and really poor calves with them are rare. 

The pure bred bull of a long established type is 
more likely to mark his offspring than is the scrub 
cow. A fairly large per cent, considerably more 
than half, of the heifers will be good and some of 
them nearly as good in milk production as the pure 
breds themselves. Grade cows are very valuably 
as milk producers, but grade bulls should not be 
used as sires because they do not have the ability 
to breed true like the pure bred. 

Most farmers have been in the habit of using a 
bull a couple of years and then selling him to the 
butcher before his real worth was discovered. A 
bull's ability to produce heifers that make good 
cows can only be definitely told after his heifers 
have freshened and made records. Some of the 
best pure bred breeders in the United States will 
not use a bull on their best cows until one hundred 
of his daughters are in the Advanced Registry 
which means that beginning at the age of two 
years they must produce 250.5 pounds of butter fat 
annually and must increase the production to 360 
pounds of butter fat at the age of five years. In 



The Pure Bred Sire 25 

this way the best bulls are ascertained and are 
used to the best advantage. But there is also a 
way for the average farmer to receive the benefits 
of a good tested-out breeding stock at low cost. I 
refer to the co-operative bull associations and quote 
from Kimball's Dairy Farmer concerning them: 

"A co-operative bull association is a farmer's or- 
ganization whose purpose is the joint ownership, 
use, and exchange of three or more high-class pure 
bred bulls. The territory covered by the associa- 
tion is divided into three or more breeding blocks 
and a bull is stationed in each block for the service 
of the fifty or sixty cows in the block. Every two 
years the bulls are interchanged. Thus, at a small 
cost, a bull for every sixty cows is provided for six 
or more years. The cost of bull service is greatly 
reduced, the best bulls obtained, and the bulls of 
outstanding merit are preserved for their entire 
period of usefulness." 



CHAPTER IV. 
WHAT TO FEED 

Chemical Analysis. The chemical analysis of 
feed does not by any means tell the whole story. 
Wheat straw, for instance shows up very well in 
chemical analysis but experiments have shown 
that it takes more energy to digest it than it pro- 
duces. Even when we figure only the digestible 
nutrients, the nutrients which by chemical analysis 
are found to be digested by animals, we do not by 
any means have the whole story. For instance, 
in human food we find that the protein in milk 
is about four times as valuable as the protein in 
the bean. In the results of a feeding experiment 
reported in Dr. McCollum's ''Newer Knowledge of 
Nutrition" on page 75, it was found that when 
the source of protein was the bean, four times as 
much was required for maintaining the body weight 
of the animal as when the source of protein was 
milk. We used to figure protein as protein and car- 
bohydrates as carbohydrates but now we discrimi- 
nate. We must learn to figure them in the results 



What to Feed 27 

they produce. This is extremely difficult to do 
scientifically. When an animal must have a variety 
of feeds who can tell just what proportion of her 
production is due to certain foods eaten? 

We can get at these things in a general way, 
however, by experience. Feeding has long been 
known as an art. Some day it may be entirely a 
science. But that can not be said at the present 
time. We must vary the feeds used and learn by 
experience and observation what gets the best re- 
sults. A chemical analysis of tender grass will 
not show it to contain more digestive nutrients 
than the old tough grass that the cows will hardly 
eat, but it requires much less energy to convert it 
into milk. 

One year I listed some squaw corn about the 
tenth of July in a wheat stubble. By frost this 
corn was beginning to come into roasting ears. 
But most of the ears had not developed kernels. I 
filled the silo from this field and got, as nearly as 
I could ascertain, just as much milk from my herd 
by feeding that silage as by feeding silage made 
from mature corn containing considerable grain. 
The same amount of dry grains were fed in both 



28 Stock and Stalks 

cases. According to analysis this result could not 
possibly be obtained. 

Experiments have been tried in which the whole 
wheat plant, grain, straw and all, also the oat plant 
and the corn plant were fed separately to young 
heifers. The heifers fed the corn plant grew to 
maturity and bore young normally. The heifers 
fed wheat and oats did poorly, produced their 
young prematurely, all but one of which died soon 
after birth. This does not indicate that oat or 
wheat feeds are not good for cattle, but in them- 
selves they are not sufficient. I do not think this 
deficiency can be shown in the chemical analysis 
but some of the food elements are hard to get. I 
think if this wheat and oat plant had been young 
and tender as a growing grass instead of a ma- 
ture grain the heifers would have done well. 
Ground oats is one of the best dairy feeds I ever 
tried. 

Balanced Rations. I do not know just to what 
extent a cow requires a balanced ration. Since 
some feeds have values over others that the chemi- 
cal analysis does not show, I think the balanced ra- 
tion figures and tables have been overworked. 
They are not entirely valueless, however. Some 



What to Feed 29 

will be placed in this book. Everyone knows that a 
cow should not be fed one kind of feed only. We 
should give as great a variety of feeds as possible 
and the cows likes and dislikes, together with the 
results in the milk pail, give about all the informa- 
tion concerning a balanced feed that the writer has 
ever used. We do not need to worry about the 
supply of protein here because we use so much al- 
falfa, or about the carbohydrates when we are feed- 
ing the product of the corn plant. 

A variation from a balanced ration does not im- 
mediately affect the cow and usually one change off- 
sets another. Experienced feeders of record-mak- 
ing cattle make use of the chemical analysis of 
feeds in their intense effort to have the cow digest 
a very large am.ount of food, yield a large amount 
of milk, and still keep her bodily weight about nor- 
mal. But for farm conditions we should know that 
too great an amount of alfalfa, bran, and like feeds 
usually results in sleek, fat cattle and that cows 
fed principally corn and carbohydrates, if they are 
milking well, will look rather rough and get too 
thin. The writer at one time had alfalfa in such 
abundance that he let the milk herd run out in the 
field and eat all they wanted from the stack. They 



30 Stock and Stalks 

had silage and other feeds about as usual, but they 
did not eat as much silage as they should have. The 
result was that the herd looked fine and thrifty but 
produced less milk. 

Many people think that a cow is either lean or 
fat and if she fills out in her body she is always 
taking on fat, but the amount of lean meat on the 
body also varies. Protein feeds are muscle build- 
ers. They make animals grow. Carbohydrates sup- 
ply fat and energy which is a separate thing from 
muscle. Many times if cows become overweight 
we reduce the total amount of feed consumed and 
get a large yield in the milk pail. "The eye of the 
feeder fattens his cattle." It also fills the milk 
pail. Scientific knowledge can help a good feeder 
but I doubt very much if it alone can make one. 
Rules and system can not be made to take the place 
of interest and attention. 

For those w^ho care to go thoroughly into the 
subject of feeding I recommend "How to Feed the 
Dairy Cow," by Hugh Van Pelt, Editor of Kim- 
ball's Dairy Farmer, Waterloo, Iowa. 

I have referred those who wish to go deeply into 
the subject of feeds to more eminent authorities 
because I have never raced cows in a record contest 



What to Feed 31 

and am not an authority on the subject. The rea- 
son I have for writing is that I have viewed the 
subject from the standpoint of profit making rather 
than that of high production. Feeding for profit 
has been too Httle considered. 

Pastures. The way that pastures are generally 
used is, in my opinion, the greatest mistake in the 
milk business. Certainly we can make two blades 
of grass grow where one blade of grass and one 
weed grew before. Most of the pastures that we 
see are either bare like a desert or weedy enough to 
hide a calf three months old. A cow can not get 
enough feed in the average pasture, no matter how 
many acres she mows over. There is no need to 
estimate how many acres of poor pasture a cow re- 
quires, but one acre of well-cared for pasture per 
cow is all the writer has ever had to use. While I 
have fed a small amount of alfalfa in the summer, I 
think it is safe to say that our cows had more grass 
per head than almost any cows in the county. 
Next year I expect to pasture fifty cows on thirty 
acres, feeding what is necessary in addition. I ex- 
pect to get nearly enough grass in a reasonably 
good year for that number of cows. 

The secret of the system lies in the fact that I 



32 Stock and Stalks 

have the pasture divided into four parts and pas- 
ture one part at a time, then use a mowing ma- 
chine to dip off all weeds or remaining grass close 
to the ground. Before turning the cattle into one 
of these pastures, I wait until the grass has had 
about four weeks to grow. If the grass gives out, 
the cow is given enough feed to make up the dif- 
ference. I do not let the grass stay short, for if 
it stays short, the roots will also be short and in 
that condition it can not withstand drought. Any 
kind of grass will yield two or three times as much 
feed per acre, if allowed to grow a month at a 
time as it will if pastured off short all of the time. 
I let the cattle eat the grass off the pasture about 
as often as alfalfa is cut. Everyone knows that if 
they would cut their alfalfa every three days they 
would have hardly a hat full of hay at the end of 
the season. I aim to mow the pasture about the 
time that the cattle are taken out, for I do not 
want any old, tough grass for the next time that 
the cattle are turned into it. 

Much of our pasture is a mixture of blue grass, 
timothy and sweet clover with the sweet clover pre- 
dominating. I do not want to place too much re- 
liance on shallow rooting grasses, such as white 



What to Feed 33 

clover and blue grass, although I have some pas- 
ture of that kind. I like to have about five acres 
of sorghum or Sudan grass to pasture once about 
the first of August and then again about the sec- 
ond week in September. 

Sweet clover will root about four feet deep. Al- 
falfa will root much deeper but is not practical as 
a pasture. Blue grass and white clover, especially 
where cropped off short, root very shallow. Sudan 
grass will draw moisture three or four feet deep. 
Sudan grass is like sorghum and may at some time 
turn poison late in the fall, as far as I know, but 
I know people who use it regularly for pasture and 
have never had any such trouble. I have never 
pastured Sudan grass but have used sorghum, and 
have had no bad results. To get the most out of 
pasture we must have all the surface available for 
use and we must give the plant an opportunity to 
breathe in order that it may root as deep as pos- 
sible, and then we should use deep rooting grasses 
such as sweet clover and Sudan grass or sorghum. 

In getting at the value of pastures be sure to re- 
member that the cow goes out to harvest the crop. 
I do not think that pasture is an expensive feed. 



34 Stock and Stalks 

It is probably the cheapest feed we can get all 
things considered, when properly managed. 

Hay. Four tons of alfalfa hay contain more nu- 
trients than ten tons of silage, and hay is cheaper 
to raise and cheaper to harvest. The intensive 
dairy farmer makes alfalfa hay form as large a 
part of his ration as practical, for a certain variety 
is needed. However, figuring alfalfa as against corn 
fodder, the fodder is the cheaper under average 
conditions. The by-product farmer will do well to 
use as little alfalfa as he can and still get good 
results. 

The principal value in alfalfa hay for cattle feed- 
ing is in the leaves and the results obtained are so 
dependent upon the kind of hay we get that we 
consider that part of the secret of feeding lies in 
putting up the hay. It has been demonstrated by 
Headdon of the Colorado Experiment Station that 
where alfalfa is put up by the most careful method, 
three hundred and fifty pounds of leaves are lost 
for every ton of hay put up. Where alfalfa is care- 
lessly handled and most of the leaves fall off, we 
lose as much as three thousand pounds of leaves 
for every ton of hay put up, and the hay that re- 
mains is of very little value so far as milk cows 



What to Feed 35 

are concerned. Not only do we lose the leaves of 
alfalfa but we can lose the food value out of the 
leaf very easily. The alfalfa leaf is very easily di- 
gested and the nutrients so easily digested are 
leached out by rain. They even leave the plant 
when it is bleached in the sun. The stem of the 
alfalfa has some value, however, if it is cut young 
enough to be tender. Old, woody stems will show 
well in a chemical test but will show poorly in a 
profit test on a dairy farm. 

We can judge the feeding value of alfalfa by its 
color. Well-cured hay should be pea-green, without 
must and not dusty. We get more alfalfa by rak- 
ing it soon after it is mowed, and by curing it in 
windrows or in shocks, than if we let it remain 
spread out to bleach in the sun. Besides curing 
hay in the shock, I have seen another method used 
and good results obtained where the barn was very 
large in proportion to the amount of hay put in it. 
Hay was hauled in from the field very green and 
dumped by slings along the center of the barn 
without being tramped. After several days it is 
spread. The heated hay, when lifted up in the air 
and piled up loose, cools off rapidly, the heat help- 



36 Stock and Stalks 

ing greatly to dry off the moisture. Such hay will 
not heat again and it retains its color. 

I do not think there is any other grass so valu- 
able for hay as is alfalfa. Before we had alfalfa 
we used cane and millet. Sweet clover is favored 
by some. It is about the same as alfalfa chemical- 
ly, and I do not doubt that it makes a good hay if 
not allowed to get woody. I have never used sweet 
clover as hay. Sudan grass is a sorghum and has 
come into some favor. It has about the same food 
value, however, as the corn stalk which the farmer 
already has available. 

Corn Fodder. There are thousands of acres of 
corn stalks being pastured in Nebraska and Iowa 
that have not much more value as they stand in 
the field than the dead grass by the roadside. 
Saved and utilized they are the great source of 
wealth that as yet is almost untouched. Their 
yield is like a low-grade ore found in abundance. 
Dry fodder containing no grain is worth at least 
half as much per ton as alfalfa and the yield is ap- 
proximately two tons per acre. I say it is worth 
half as much but I have to guess at it. It con- 
tains just as many pounds of digestible nutrients 
per ton as alfalfa and more than prairie hay. How 



What to Feed 37 

much it is worth depends largely upon the condi- 
tions under which it is fed. It costs no more to 
cut and shock fodder than to husk a field of corn. 
Cutting up the fodder and husking out the ears by 
machine is not an expensive operation. Remember 
that hay must be brought in from the field. The 
entire cost of cut fodder for feeding can fairly be 
figured as about the cost of operating the machine 
that does the cutting and husking. It is the cheap- 
est feed that we can get. 

Many years ago there were several large corn 
shredding machines sold throughout this territory. 
They husked the corn and shredded the fodder but 
they did not prove a success because fodder, unless 
unusually dry, gets musty if cut up fine with an 
ensilage cutter and piled up. The new and really 
successful way of handling fodder is with a small 
machine that runs with a small gasoline engine. A 
supply of fodder should be cut up every ten days 
or two weeks until a time comes when the fodder 
is real dry — not earlier than December. Then the 
job may be finished and the feed will last in- 
definitely. 

Silage Without Corn. Some feeders put this cut- 
up fodder in a silo as soon as the corn is dry 



38 Stock and Stalks 

enough to keep in the crib. They run water in 
with it and all reports seem to agree that it makes 
a good silage. I have not tried this, but I hope the 
scheme has in it the final solution of the problem. 
Silo agents have been in the habit of arguing 
that you can afford to feed silage, corn and all, to 
all of the stock on the place and let the corn stalks 
that are not put into the silo go to waste. I do 
not agree with them. Instead of putting fifteen 
acres of com in the silo where much of it is to be 
fed to young stock and horses, use twenty or even 
twenty-five acres of stalks alone and you will get 
just about as good results. But think of the sav- 
ing. The corn stalks are a by-product. You had 
to farm so many acres to get them. A part of 
your business is raising corn and the stalks are 
paid for by the grain. 

Suppose then you feed grain grown on five acres 
of land. You are using just one-third of the acres 
to feed your cattle that would be used if you had 
put in fifteen acres of corn and fed it, corn and all. 
This shows the advantages of the by-product pro- 
ducer. It fills in the big gap that has been forgot- 
ten. It is figuring on a cost basis rather than that 
of yield or speed in production. 



What to Feed 39 

Last winter a feeding experiment was tried at 
the Wisconsin Experiment Station in which corn 
silage with grain in was tested against silage from 
which the corn had been picked. The result 
showed that the cows ate slightly more silage when 
it contained the grain and yielded on an average 
three pounds more milk. The cost of the milk pro- 
duced with and without the grain in the silage was 
exactly the same. Silage was figured at $6.50 per 
ton, corn and all, and without grain at $4.00. Since 
the average farmer has cornstalks to waste and 
only has to figure the cost of saving them, they 
should not be figured at nearly two thirds of the 
corn crop, even after they have been made into 
silage. 

However, it usually pays to feed grain to cows 
that are milking. The main saving in the use of 
husked fodder lies in getting cheaper feed for 
growing young stock and feeding dry cows. 

I recommend a system of feeding silage, corn and 
all, to producing cows only. If you do not have 
cows enough to prepare to feed them separately, it 
will pay better to use no silos that have grain in 
them at all. Feed the grain to those cows only 
that are giving milk and will pay for it, or the cat- 



40 Stock and Stalks 

tie that you are fattening. Hold the rest of the 
grain for high prices. It will pay better. 

Silage. The important thing about a silo is to 
make it tall enough and small enough around. The 
following dimensions are approximately correct: 
For 12 to 15 cows, silo should be 10 feet in diameter 
For 2 to 30 cows, silo should be 12 feet in diameter 
For 30 to 40 cows, silo should be 14 feet in diameter 
For 40 to 60 cows, silo should be 16 feet in diameter 

Silage will spoil on top unless at least two inches 
are fed off each day. It usually pays to have sev- 
eral small silos rather than one big one because 
during the summer months you may want to feed 
only a part of a ration. The figures given are for 
full rations. Have the silo air tight. Cut the corn 
fine and put lots of effort on tamping it. The 
''Flink's Perfect Silo Seal" is a canvas that is treated 
with some kind of tar preparation. It spreads out 
over the top of the silo and is filled more than a 
foot deep with water. This weighs down the silage 
and makes a good air tight cover. Very little sil- 
age decays under it. With such a cover you can 
feed periodically and still lose hardly a day's feed- 
ing of silage. 

Grain Feed. Grain should be fed mixed with 
other feeds. I have often been told how foolish 



What to Feed 41 

was the old idea of the cow losing her cud. But 
a cow can hardly re-gurgitate and re-chew grain by 
itself, and all food eaten by a cow should be re- 
chewed. If food passes into the intestines with- 
out being chewed a second time, it is likely to sour 
and cause scouring and loss of appetite or even 
death, when a large amount of grain has been con- 
sumed. We usually feed grains with silage or fine- 
cut alfalfa. Alfalfa run through an ensilage cut- 
ter without any re-cutting attachment, is said to 
make cows' mouths sore, but I would much prefer 
to feed it that way and risk sore mouths than to 
risk the grain by itself. Some farmers feed corn 
and cob-meal. The cob is of no value except to 
lighten the ration, but if there is nothing else to di- 
lute the grain with, by all means use the cob. 
Oats, corn, hominy feed, which is a by-product in 
the manufacturing of corn meal, bran, which is not 
very valuable where plenty of alfalfa is fed, and 
oil meal form our principal feeds for dairy cows. 
Some get very good results by feeding ground 
speltz and barley, others by feeding ground rye. 
Corn, oats, wheat feeds and oil meal will generally 
form the main part of our ration. The average 
farmer is hardly warranted in looking farther for 



42 Stock and Stalks 

grains to feed. Oil meal helps as a conditioner and 
is fed in small amounts only. Cottonseed meal 
may be of value but has never proven so in the 
writer's personal experience. 

Grain should be ground so that all of the nutri- 
ments may be absorbed. The amount of grain to 
be fed varies with the amount of milk that the cow 
is producing. One pound of grain to every five 
pounds of milk is a fairly good rule to follow. If 
more grain is fed there should be another reason 
for it, and that is that the cow readily responds to 
more feeding and makes sufficient profit to pay for 
the extra grain. The old rule, in the main, is true 
that it takes a certain amount to maintain bodily 
weight of the animal, and that the more feed 
above the maintenance ration that she can con- 
sume and turn into milk, the more the profit. But 
even that rule should not be taken too literally. If 
the extra feed is all grain, it may be too expensive. 

Prepared Feeds. There are many kinds of pre- 
pared feeds on the market and I have no right 
either to knock or to boost them, because I know 
practically nothing about them. Where there are 
combination feeds, intended to make a balanced ra- 
tion, I think the farmer would very likely be pay- 



What to Feed 43 

ing a good deal for the combining. Where a mill 
man buys grain from farmers and from those 
grains prepares feeds that are not by-products of 
other milling operations, I think the price would be 
high. I have known farmers to sell alfalfa hay 
and buy alfalfa meal, but I do not think it pays 
to do those things. * All I would say concerning 
prepared feeds would be to experiment carefully 
and to buy them, not on their guaranteed chemical 
analysis, but on what results they actually show in 
the milk pail. Some prepared feeds contain oat 
hulls which are about like wheat straw to digest. 
Dried sugar beet pulp is a by-product feed contain- 
ing mostly carbohydrates, and seems to have some 
benefit as an appetizer. Cattle like it for a change. 
Where it is not too high and carbohydrate rough 
feeds are to be purchased, it might be profitable to 
try it. 



CHAPTER V. 

HOW TO FEED 

Balanced Ration. Cattle like variety in their 
feed. Not all cattle have the same tastes and de- 
sires. When one cow refuses to eat her grain, it is 
well to try her on some other mixture. A good 
feeder usually has several grain feeds on hand at a 
time and is continually changing and trying out 
rations. By checking his results at the pail, he 
acquires knowledge that is more practical than any 
chemist can impart. We know that a cow's food 
must contain the necessary elements needed for her 
bodily maintenance and the production of milk. 
We must supply the substances needed. Rules for 
figuring values of feeds and examples of balanced 
rations are given below, but we also let the cow in 
on the discussion. We should not follow rules so 
closely that we ignore her likes and dislikes or 
overlook the results that she puts in the milk pail 
and the pocket book. There is probably no living 
creature that has for its natural diet a balanced 



How to Feed 45 

ration, unless it be a carnivorous animal that eats 
its prey whole — feathers and all. 

A poorly balanced diet may be fed for several 
months before any results begin to show. Cattle 
do fairly well on the corn plant (mainly carbo- 
hydrates), and they also do well on pure alfalfa (a 
protein feed). They do better on a combination of 
the two, but the combination does not have to be in 
just the right proportion. In deciding what to 
feed a cow the good feeder uses his eyes more than 
his pencil. If the muscle and body of the animal 
needs building up, he uses protein feeds in large 
proportions. Cattle inclined to be too sleek and fat 
often milk better if fed more carbohydrates in pro- 
portion. But we should never pass up one or the 
other completely. Notice that I speak of only two 
substances in food — protein and carbohydrates. 
There are others, but we need not be concerned 
about them. All we want to know from the 
chemist is approximately the amount of these two 
elements the feed contains. Fat is considered the 
same as a carbohydrate but has more than two 
times the value of carbohydrates. 

Dairy cows should be kept sleek and thrifty, but 
lean while they are producing milk. The dry cow 



46 Stock and Stalks 

should be allowed to get as fat as possible, for the 
fatter and more thrifty she is the more milk she 
will give, after freshening. To maintain the cow in 
the right condition, we consider both the kind and 
the amount of feed. Many times we decrease the 
grain ration to keep a cow from getting fat and go- 
ing dry too soon. Too much grain fed is a great 
waste. The right amount to be fed can not be fig- 
ured so much by the size of the cow as by what she 
does with it. The milk pail contains the answer to 
most feeding problems. Increase the feed slightly 
and if no more milk is produced, begin to decrease 
and watch what hapepns. We have to do this for 
each cow just as we have to adjust the carburetor 
on a Ford. 

Elsewhere in this book, I discuss pastures and 
how to make the most of them. I get grass that 
is tall enough for the cattle to eat to the best ad- 
vantage and I keep it from getting old and tough by 
using the system of divided pastures described 
there. But in doing this, the grass must be pas- 
tured off fairly close before turning the cattle into 
the next pasture. If care is not taken, the cattle 
are having alternately a feast and a famine by the 
change. To offset this, I usually feed as much 



How to Feed 47 

good alfalfa as the cows will eat all of the' time. It 
does not require much hay but it makes up for the 
variation in pasture. Even when on fine pasture, 
cows like a little hay and should have it. I usually 
pasture cows at night as well as during the day. 
By all means feed cows at night if they are re- 
quired to stay in the lot. 

Where the heaviest records are made in milk 
production, they are nearly all made at prohibitive 
costs so far as the value of the product is con- 
cerned. This is because too large a proportion of 
the feed consumed is high priced. We must take 
into consideration the price of grain, the price of 
rough feed, and the price of milk products, before 
we can determine the proportion of grain and other 
feed that should be given to the dairy cow. 

We can make milk out of rough feed without any 
grain under the proper conditions. When grain is 
too much out of proportion in price, we can safely 
do without it, if our rough feed happens to be good 
pasture or good alfalfa hay and silage. If our 
roughage is too poor, it rarely pays to compel good 
dairy cows to live on it alone, for their future use- 
fulness will be impaired by starvation. A drought 
in summer with the resulting short pasture often 



48 Stock and Stalks 

knocks down the milk flow for all of the next win- 
ter and makes all that year's production more ex- 
pensive. Starve a good cow and she soon becomes 
a poor one, for she must adjust herself to the new 
condition. The new condition she adopts is the 
same as that of the scrub. The scrub is a product 
of starvation. She has been bred to withstand 
hardships instead of using all efforts to produce 
milk. Never let a good cow go hungry for pasture 
or hay. 

Water. A milk cow requires about twelve and 
one-half gallons of pure water per day. In sum- 
mer it should be fresh and cool water. In winter 
it should be fairly warm. The water should be as 
accessible as possible at all times. Twice a day is 
not often enough for milk cows. Especially when 
cattle are on dry feed, the more water they can be 
induced to consume, the more butter fat and milk 
solids it will put into the pail. In the winter we 
usually water cows three times a day in the barn 
with water no colder than comes from the well, and 
slightly salt their feed so that they will drink 
water in abundance. I do not know just what ef- 
fect stagnant, dirty water has on a milk cow, but 
do not think I would want to drink the milk that 



How to Feed 49 

is made up largely of such water. Also if cattle 
wade in infected water and get their udders and 
teats in it, the milk will to a certain extent be in- 
fected as is the water. 

Calf and Heifer Feeding. In raising calves by 
hand there is more danger of overfeeding than of 
underfeeding. There is also danger in feeding milk 
that is too cold. In feeding an average young calf 
we usually take about two quarts of the first milk 
that is drawn from the cow, which is low in butter 
fat, and feed the milk fresh and warm with the 
animal heat in it. After three weeks, skim milk 
may be substituted especially if it is warm and 
fresh. If the milk is artificially warmed it should 
be fed at a temperature of at least eighty degrees. 
Do not dilute milk with water. Let the calf have 
what water it wants separately. A calf should 
have milk until at least three months old but at 
the end of a week it will eat shelled corn and oats. 
These grains should be fed liberally to calves that 
do not have enough milk for a complete ration. 
After a calf is one month old it may be raised on 
milk made from dried buttermilk or condensed but- 
termilk or on skim milk of any kind, provided it 
is not fed too much at a time nor fed milk that is 



50 Stock and Stalks 

too cold. No changes such as from sweet milk to 
sour milk should be made suddenly. If feeding 
condensed butteraiilk the milk after being diluted 
should be tested for solids with a lactometer. Some 
manufacturers of such products give directions for 
reducing it with water to such an extent that it 
would look like ordinary skim milk but have only 
half its value. This may make it appear that the 
feeder is getting a lot for his money, but he will 
not long be fooled by directions of that kind if he 
is watching the cost of his feed and the growth of 
his calves and knows what results he should ex- 
pect for his money. 

People sometimes tell of stunted calves that 
turned out to be good cows but I do not think that 
a calf can be stunted a minute without being af- 
fected. If a stunted calf makes a good cow, which 
seldom ever happens, certain it is that if the calf 
had been well nourished the cow would have been 
even greater. Animals do not grow all of their 
lives. They grow while they are young. Every 
minute of that youth period that we lose for 
growth is lost forever. Growth is the natural de- 
velopment of bone, muscle, nervous system, circu- 
lation, etc., that the animal needs for hard work 



How to Feed 51 

when mature. Breeders of pure bred cattle, who 
expect to make records with their young stock, feed 
them grain every day. I do not think this is neces- 
sary or practical for the farmer to do, but certain 
it is, that no promising heifer should ever be al- 
lowed to get thin. She should have good pasture 
during all of the summer and should have plenty 
of well-cured feed, com fodder or corn silage, and 
a fair amount of alfalfa every day during the 
winter. 

Chemical Analysis. A chemical analysis of some 
of the most commonly used feeds for dairy cows 
follows : 



52 



Stock and Stalks 



Total Dry 
Matter in 
FEEDING STUFF 100 lbs. 

Alfalfa Hay 91.4 

Timothy Hay 88.4 

Prairie Hay (Western) 93.5 
Clover, Sweet, White.. 91.4 
Sorghum Fodder, Dry.. 90.3 
Corn Silage 26.3 

Corn and Its Products 

Corn, Dent 89.5 

Gluten feed 91.3 

Hominy 89.9 

Wheat and Its Products 

Wheat 89.8 

Bran 89.9 

Wheat Feed (Shorts 

and Bran) 89.9 

Rye and Its Products 

Rye 90.6 

Rye feed (Shorts and 

Bran) 88.5 

Oats and Its Products 

Oats 90.8 

Oat Hulls 93.2 

Emmer (Spelt) 91.3 

Linseed Meal 90.4 

Cotton Seed Meal 92.5 



Digestive Nutrients in 100 lbs. 



Crude 


Carbo- 






Protein 


hydrates 


Fat 


Total 


10.6 


39.0 


0.9 


51.6 


3.0 


42.8 


1.2 


48.5 


4.0 


41.4 


1.1 


47.9 


10.9 


38.2 


0.7 


50.7 


2.8 


44.8 


2.0 


52.1 


1.1 


15.0 


0.7 


17.7 


7.5 


67.8 


4.6 


85.7 


21.6 


51.9 


3.2 


80.7 


7.0 


61.2 


7.3 


84.6 


9.2 


67.5 


1.5 


80.1 


12.5 


41.6 


3.0 


60.9 



12.9 



45.1 



4.0 



67.0 



9.9 


68.4 


1.2 


81.0 


12.2 


55.8 


2.9 


74.5 


9.7 


52.1 


3.8 


70.4 


2.0 


45.2 


1.3 


50.1 


9.5 


63.2 


1.7 


76.5 


31.7 


37.9 


2.8 


75.9 


37.0 


21.8 


8.6 


78.2 



How to Feed 53 



Carbo. 


Fat 


lbs. 


lbs. 


7.0 


0.1 


0.2 


0.017 


0.22 


0.019 


0.24 


0.021 



Rations for the Dairy Cow. Haecker's standard 
for the feeding of dairy cows is as follows: 



DAILY ALLOWANCE 

Crude 

Prot. 

lbs. 

For Maintenance of 1000 lb. cow 0.7 

For each pound of 3% milk 0.047 

For each pound of 8.5% milk 0.049 

For each pound of 4% milk 0.054 



To illustrate the table there follows the allowance 

for a 1000 pound cow producing 25 pounds of 4% 

milk daily: 

Crude 

Prot. Carbo. Fat 
lbs. lbs. lbs. 

For Maintenance 0.70 7.0 0.10 

For 25 pounds of 4% milk 1.35 6.0 0.52 

Total 2.05 13.0 0.62 



54 



Stock and Stalks 



Below are given some balanced rations common- 
ly fed to dairy cows: 

Total 
Car- Diges- 
Diges- bohy- tible 
Dry tible drates Nutri- 

Matter Protein and fats ents 

lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. 

No. 1 

Corn : 10 8.95 .75 7.24 8.57 

Corn Stover 10 8.10 .21 4.31 4.61 

Alfalfa Hay 12 10.97 1.27 4.78 6.19 

No. 2 

Corn Silage 40 10.52 .44 6.28 7.08 

Alfalfa Hay 10 9.14 1.06 3.99 5.16 

Wheat Bran 2 1.79 .25 .89 1.21 

Corn Meal 6 5.32 .41 4.35 5.08 

No. 3 

Corn Silage 35 9.20 .38 5.49 6.19 

Alfalfa Hay 10 9.14 1.06 3.99 5.16 

Ground Corn 5 4.43 .34 3.62 4.19 

Wheat Bran 5 4.49 .62 2.23 3.04 

Linseed Meal I1/2 1.35 .47 .61 1.13 

At the Nebraska State Fair in 1920 there was in 
the Dairy building a large Holstein cow designated 
as the champion cow of Nebraska for 1919. She 
is owned by Chris Stryker of Red Cloud. I copied 
from the records the amount of feed she consumed 



How to Feed 55 

in a year and the amount of her production. They 
are as follows: 

Feed Returns 

lbs. lbs. lbs. 

Corn 1790 Beets 9645 Milk 26,721.5 

Oil Meal 1352 Dried beet Butter 1,066 

Barley 463 pulp 1254 

Bran 2312 Hay 4068 

Oats 498 Silage 4680 

Total 6452 Total 19,647 

It will be noticed that she consumed a little less 
than 18 pounds of grain per day on an average 
throughout the year, that the grain consisted of 
five varieties, and that the rough feed was of a 
high order, which makes it more expensive than 
most of us can afford to use as a regular feed. 
Beets are chemically about equal to corn silage, 
but in actual results in feeding they are consider- 
ably superior. I have not fed dried beet pulp, but 
I have fed it fresh and it is a very good milk pro- 
ducer. Cows milk down thin on it. If we would 
increase the figures on the dried beet pulp to what 
it would be if the pulp were fed fresh, it would 
bring the beet ration up to at least three times the 
amount of the silage ration. 



CHAPTER VI. 
VARIATION IN MILK TESTS 

G. W. Shaw in Hoard's Dairyman of March 10, 
1916 says: 

"It is a well-known fact that the percentage of 
butter fat in the milk of cows increases very ma- 
terially toward the end of a period of lactation. 
There are also other slight changes in that period. 
During the first month the fat generally averages 
higher than during the second month. Under nor- 
mal conditions of feed, etc., the fact increases from 
the third or fourth month to the end of lactation. 

''Although it is a fact that cows cannot be fed 
to give beyond a certain percentage of butterfat, 
yet it has been proven many times that if poorly 
fed for a considerable length of time, the average 
test will decrease. This is especially true if cows 
become thin and poor in flesh. Many times this 
will account for a farmer's average herd test drop- 
ping from one period to the next. It is also notice- 
able that the quantity of water taken, whether as 
water or succulent feed, affects the herd. This is 



Variation in Milk Tests 57 

particularly noticeable when cows are changed from 
a diet of dry hay to green feed or vice versa. 

*'It has been noted that the change of weather 
affects the test. A sudden cold period coming will 
usually decrease the quantity of milk, but increase 
the percentage of fat. If the cold period con- 
tinues, this change will tend to right itself. It 
would seem that there is a connection between the 
question of heat and cold and the amount of water 
taken. 

'*It is a v/ell-known fact that the first milk drawn 
from a cow's udder is very low in butterfat, not 
over 1%, whereas the last drawn is quite high, 
sometimes reaching 10%. The importance of ex- 
haustive milking is evident. By carefully milking 
to the fullest extent each time, the test will un- 
doubtedly be higher than if milking were not ex- 
haustive. This, continued over a period of time, 
would have its effect on the 15-day test. 

''Another very important point we wish to make 
is this, unless a man who does his testing at home 
understands how to do it thoroughly and is very 
careful in taking his sample, he will not check with 
the factory test. There are several reasons for dif- 
ferences between tests made on samples taken at 



58 Stock and Stalks 

the farm and those made on samples taken at the 
factory. 

"Many farmers have a habit of taking a httie 
cream or top milk for family use, and think that 
it will not materially affect the average test. As a 
matter of fact it will affect materially. For in- 
stance, if a farmer were producing 100 pounds of 
milk testing 3.5% and he used one quart of top 
milk, testing 10%, his average test would be re- 
duced .2 of 1% ; that is, instead of delivering milk 
testing 3.5% it would actually test 3.3%. 

''Some farmers adopt another method; they use, 
for family purposes the milk from a cow which 
gives the richest milk, so that the result is always 
the same, the average test being lower. 

''Another cause of difference in tests, and we 
think this is a very important one, is found in the 
condition of the milk when received at the factory. 
Some farmer's milk, when brought in, is smooth 
and homogeneous; some bring in milk which is 
slightly churned; that is, there are small particles 
of butter, which is separated butterfat floating on 
the surface. This latter milk is very hard to sam- 
ple; the sampler is plunged into the milk and is 
likely to miss a due proportion of these floating 



Variation in Milk Tests 59 

particles. In addition, some of the separated but- 
terfat is sure to be left behind, both on the sides 
of can and on the cover. Butterfat adheres to any 
surface much more rapidly than any other of the 
milk solids. It is quite evident that milk which is 
partially churned will get a lower test at the fac- 
tory than it did at the farm before it became 
churned. 

"In order to prevent this churning, it is most im- 
portant that the milk be quickly and thoroughly 
cooled after milking. If milk is poured into cans 
and stirred and handled in a half warm condition, 
it is sure to separate to some extent. While the 
particles of butterfat are not large enough to be 
particularly noticeable, they are there and adhere 
to the surfaces as described. 

"Another condition which causes trouble in 
sampling, is found where some of the cream is firm 
and floats around in hard lumps but is not churned. 
This kind of cream is also hard to sample and these 
lumps are liable to be left behind on the sides of 
the can and cover. We believe this condition is 
caused by allowing milk to cool spontaneously. 
That is, instead of cooling quickly, the farmer fills 
up his milk can and lets it stand to cool slowly. 



60 Stock and Stalks 

This is liable to give a hard cream on the surface 
which does not break up readily. The farmer, 
therefore, will get a better test by cooling his milk 
quickly and thoroughly and refraining from using 
the top milk for family use. 

**We have come to this conclusion, namely, that 
certain conditions affect cows and their work, the 
same as that of human beings. As someone has 
said: Tut yourself in a cow's place and try to get 
her point of view. Could you do good work if a 
swarm of flies were bothering you all the time? 
What effect does an extremely warm day or two 
have on your capacity for work? If you were out 
in a cold, rain, and wind storm, how would it affect 
your work? Suppose you were thirsty and had to 
wait two or three hours before you could get a 
drink and then got foul and stagnant water? Or, 
suppose that someone stronger than yourself would 
chase you away from the shade or sheltered spot or 
forced you to move when you were resting or eat- 
ing? Suppose you were forced to eat food that you 
did not like or enjoy? How long would it be be- 
fore these things would show in your work? Any 
or all of them would impair your efficiency and 
lessen your ability.' " 



CHAPTER VII. 
SUGGESTIONS FOR CONSTRUCTING A BARN. 

Since there is so much information available 
concerning construction of barns, it is not neces- 
sary for me to discuss it here except to criticize 
the standard forms. On most farms at hay-mak- 
ing time there is no time to haul hay to the dairy 
barn so it is stacked in the field and hauled in dur- 
ing the winter. Many large dairy barn hay mows 
are constructed at a great deal of expense and stand 
empty most of the time in this climate. Before build- 
ing large, expensive barns it might be well to con- 
sult those who have built to see how they are get- 
ting along. On an average farm I would suggest 
a one story shed for the cows built as a lean-to or 
butting up against a hay shed. This hay shed need 
not be very large. 

In most expensive barns there is installed a lit- 
ter-carrier that runs on a track. If I were going 
to use a litter-carrier at all I would have the thing 
so that it could be let do^\Tl below the level of the 
gutter and shove the manure down the gutter into 



62 Stock and Stalks 

it. This means would save all the liquid manure 
which is more valuable and would save the effort 
required to hft the manure with a shovel. When 
full the carrier could be hoisted, run on the track, 
and dumped into the wagon or wherever desired. 
But why use a carrier? Why not have the gutters 
run through the side of the barn and a wagon or 
manure spreader standing beneath? It is veiy 
easy to push the manure from ten cows down the 
gutter. Two gutters could run into one wagon 
which would be left standing outside of the barn 
on lower ground. The barn could either stand on a 
side hill or a place could be dug to run the wagon 
into. If hogs are to work over the manure, a con- 
crete basin should be constructed to hold it. 

The feed trough should be so made that it may 
be used to water the cows during cold weather. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

MILKING 

The cow's milk is partly manufactured in the 
udder at the time it is being drawn. The process 
is like digestion and is interfered with by any 
nervous tension or shock. The prick of a pin that 
will make a cow jump at the time of milking has 
been known to greatly reduce the butterfat of 
the milk given and at the same time to reduce the 
supply. Shepherd dogs that go after cows are 
likely to perform their labor at a very high cost 
in milk. A milk stool used as a weapon knocks 
a lot of money out of the farmer's pocket. A 
rough milker who irritates a cow causes much 
trouble also. If I were to judge a dairyman by 
just one thing I could tell most about him by 
noticing how well the cows liked to have him milk 
them. Where a cow has to dance to the jerking 
of rough hands and listen to profanity of the 
milker, that is plenty of information to decide that 
on that farm dairying does not pay. Thei'e are 



64 Stock and Stalks 

few cows that will treat a milker any better than 
he treats them. 

For sanitary reasons I do not believe in milking 
with wet hands, but if a cow's udder is caked, the 
best cure that I know is to draw the milk into the 
hands very slowly and rub it into the caked udder 
until it is absorbed through the skin. I do not 
know or care why, but there is something about a 
cow's milk that is good for her caked udder when 
applied to the outside. One treatment of an hour's 
duration, milking the milk a stream at a time and 
working it into the caked udder, is often sufficient 
to cure even bad cases. Oow's teats should never 
be allowed to get sore, for clean milk can not be 
produced from sore, bleeding teats. It may be 
necessary to apply antiseptic medicines when they 
are sore, but a good way to keep the teats soft and 
pliable so the cow will not be irritated by milking 
is to take the last streams or two in the udder, 
milk it into the hand and use it to rub into the 
teat. The solids in the last streams of milk are 
about one-half butterfat and this greases the teat 
with the best kind of grease that I know. 

Having employed a great many men on the farm 
I have found from experience that two out of three 



Milking 65 

do not know how to milk. Of these, some can be 
taught but many are not worth bothering with. 
Many are too rough and many do not seem to be 
able to get all the milk from the udder. To get all 
the milk from one quarter of the udder the milker 
should use both hands, using one hand above the 
teat to squeeze the milk into the teat and with the 
other hand milk it into the pail. 



CHAPTER IX. 
MILK PRODUCTS 

Every milk producer should make some study of 
the principal products that are made from milk, 
for such information may help to market it to a 
better advantage. 

Butter. The law requires that butter contain 
80% butter-fat and that it shall contain less than 
16% moisture. In 100 pounds of creamery butter 
there is usually about 3 pounds of salt, 1 pound of 
casein and between 15 and 16 pounds of water. 

Figuring that butter contains 80% fat for the 
minimum which allows for the maximum amount 
of water, the following amount may be obtained 
from 100 pounds of milk : 

100 lbs. of 3% milk will produce 3% lbs. of butter. 
100 lbs. of 4% milk will produce 5 lbs. of butter. 
100 lbs. of 5% milk will produce 6^4 lbs. of butter. 

Cheese. It usually takes about 10 pounds of 4% 
milk to make 1 pound of cheddar cheese, which is 
the common cheese usually sold at the stores. This 



Milk Products 67 

cheese will test out about 36.8% fat, 25.5% pro- 
tein, 6% sugar, ash, etc., and 31.7% water. 

Cottage Cheese. Cottage cheese is usually made 
from skim milk. 100 pounds of average skim milk 
will make from 12 to 15 pounds of cottage cheese, 
such as is usually sold on the city market. Where 
it is creamed the cream is put in after the cheese 
is made. 

Cream. 100 pounds of 4% milk will produce : 20 
pounds of 20% cream and 80 pounds of skim re- 
maining, 131/3 pounds of 30% cream and 86% lbs. 
of skim remaining, or 10 pounds of 40% cream and 
90 pounds of skim remaining. 

The average cream sold tests about 30% butter- 
fat, so on the average the farmer has left about 
86 pounds or a ten-gallon can of skim milk for 
every 100 pounds of 4% milk. 

Skim Milk. The value of skim milk on the farm 
as feed is an important one for the farmer. The 
price of whole milk in the city is not always high 
enough so that it pays the farmer to sell his skim 
rather than to use it for feeding. During the flush 
season in the spring when milk dealers are all 
burdened with a surplus of milk, it would be a 
great advantage if more farmers would separate 



68 Stock and Stalks 

and feed the skim milk to hogs. I will endeavor 
to give here as accurately as possible what real 
information I can gather from Experiment Station 
reports concerning the feeding value of skim milk. 
At the outset it might be well to state that on 
this question I have never known any two agricul- 
tural experts to agree and experiments need to be 
carefully analyzed before they yield true informa- 
tion. 

I can prove to you from experiments published 
in Henry & Morrison's "Feeds and Feeding'' that 
skim milk is worth only $.08 a hundred pounds 
when com meal is worth $1.00 a hundred, and I 
can prove that skim milk is worth $.31 a hundred 
pounds when corn meal is worth $1.00 a hundred. 
In fact when an experimenter undertakes to prove 
a thing he has very easy sailing if he can line up 
conditions to suit the proposition he intends to 
prove. The trouble with most experiments on this 
subject has been that they are apparently planned 
to be used as arguments for the purpose of in- 
creasing the feeding of skim milk and they do not 
undertake to solve the real question involved. 

Every one knows that corn alone is too unbal- 
anced a ration to feed to hogs profitably. Where 



Milk Products 69 

it is endeavored to show that skim milk has a very 
high value, one bunch of hogs is fed corn alone, 
and to compare with it another bunch is fed corn 
and a small amount of skim milk. Let those who 
are satisfied with the information that can be ob- 
tained by such an experiment use it and I will have 
no dispute with them. But for most of us the 
question is whether we should feed alfalfa to the 
cow and the cow's milk to the pig or let the pig eat 
his own alfalfa. A hog's ration may be balanced 
with alfalfa hay or with alfalfa or rape pasture. 
The question is whether milk and corn makes as 
cheap a gain as alfalfa and corn. It is very difficult 
to find experiments that answer this question and 
it is the most practical one in the world. If it is 
good sense to use the cost of producing pork on 
dry corn alone as the basis of getting at the value 
of milk, it is also good sense to use skim milk alone 
as the basis of figuring the value of grain. In an 
experiment published by Henry & Morrison on 
page 597, where little pigs weighing only twenty- 
five pounds were used and which are capable of 
making cheaper gains on milk than older hogs be- 
cause they have smaller bodies to maintain, it took 
2,739 pounds of skim milk to make one hundred 



70 Stock and Stalks 

-■# 

pounds of gain. But where 233 pounds of grain 
were fed with 935 pounds of skim milk there was 
also a gain of one hundred pounds. Figuring now 
as they do who would set the value of milk by the 
cost of feeding dry grain, we will use skim milk as 
a basis of figuring. If skim milk is worth $.30 a 
hundred, corn is worth $2.32 a hundred. This is the 
same line of reasoning as is used when in an experi- 
ment reported on page 598, if corn is worth $.01 a 
pound we find that skim milk is worth $.30 a hun- 
dred. All they prove is that a hog must have some- 
thing besides corn or milk. Corn is the cheapest hog 
feed but it is too unbalanced a diet to get the best 
results when fed alone. A small amount of skim 
milk or something else will balance the diet. Ac- 
cording to reports published by Henry & Morrison 
on page 598 it will be noticed that 585 pounds of 
skim milk reduced the amount of grain required to 
produce 100 lb. growth by 179 pounds. If corn is 
worth $.01 a pound and we figure on that basis, 
skim milk is worth $.31 a hundred pounds. But 
notice what happens when the amount of skim milk 
is increased beyond what is needed to supply the 
elements which corn lacks. When the amount of 



Milk Products 71 

skim milk is increased by 463 pounds more, the 
amount of corn meal eaten was only reduced by 56 
pounds, so that for the first 585 pounds the farmer 
was getting $.31 but for the next 463 pounds he 
was getting only $.12 a hundred pounds, and when 
the skim milk was again increased by 849 pounds 
the amount of corn meal required was only reduced 
71 pounds and this figures down the last batch of 
skim to only about $.08 per hundred pounds. 
These experiments prove that we must keep some- 
where near a balanced ration but do not prove any- 
thing regarding a definite value of skim as a feed. 
What your skim milk is worth on the farm de- 
pends altogether on how much it is needed to bal- 
ance the diet in hog feeding operations. It is of 
much more value for little pigs than for larger 
hogs that are more capable of digesting grasses. 
Professor Henry says, 'Tigs fed skim milk and 
grain gained nothing from pasture. Grazing stimu- 
lates the appetites of pigs getting grain but no 
milk and they eat more grain and make larger and 
more economical gains." So we see that pigs will 
pass up pasture for milk and that when milk is 
fed to pigs on pasture it replaces the use of pas- 
ture so that it does not do much good to pasture 



72 Stock and Stalks 

hogs that are fed milk. Experiments reported on 
page 614 show that pigs on alfalfa pasture require 
344 pounds of grain to gain one hundred pounds 
and that on rape pasture only 340 pounds are re- 
quired. 

Different experiments always vary slightly as to 
the amount of grain required to make a certain 
growth. But taking the most advantageous ration 
that we can prepare with milk and corn as shown 
by these experiments, we may conclude that some- 
thing like 300 pounds of grain and 500 pounds of 
milk will make one hundred pounds of growth on 
one hundred pound hogs, and that about 350 
pounds of grain fed to hogs on pasture will make 
the same amount of growth. Let each farmer 
figure out what pasture and grain cost him and 
he can get approximately the real value of skim 
milk. ^ For large hogs milk will be worth less than 
here shown. For smaller hogs it will be worth 
more. 

It may be interesting to know the cost per pound 
of skim milk solids figured at different prices, but 
the chemical analysis we are not considering. One 
hundred pounds of milk usually contains about 9.25 
pounds of solids. If 100 pounds of skim milk is 



Milk Products 73 

worth $.20, one pound of dry matter would be 
worth $.0216 and a ton would be worth $43.20. At 
$.40 a hundred, one pound of dry matter would be 
worth $.0432 and a ton would be worth $86.40. At 
$.50 a hundred, one pound of dry matter would cost 
$.0540 and one ton cost $108.00. 

Whey. The average composition of whey is 
about as follows: water 93.12%, and total soHds 
6.88%. Of the total solids there are about .27% 
fat, .81% nitrogenous substances and 5.80% sugar, 
ash, etc. For pigs whey has a feeding value about 
half that of skim milk. 



CtHAPTER X. 
MARKET MILK 

Weight of Milk. The weight of milk varies 
sHghtly with the temperature and also because of 
the difference in the amount of solids it contains. 
An average gallon of milk at 60 degrees weighs 
8.6 pounds. A ten-gallon can filled to the lid should 
weigh 86 pounds. 

A can large enough to hold 100 pounds of water 
would hold 103.2 pounds of average milk at 60 de- 
grees, 103.6 pounds of skim milk, or 90 pounds of 
pure butterfat. Cream weighs less than water. 
The butterfat in milk is in the form of little par- 
ticles or globules, which float around in the milk. 
In Holstein milk they are small, in Jersey milk 
they are larger. Cream is simply milk containing a 
large number of particles of fat. 

Legal Requirements. The law requires market 
milk to test not less than 3% butterfat. Milk con- 
taining 3% butterfat but less than 111/2% total 
solids is usually considered watered milk. We de- 
termine fat content by Babcock test and the solids- 



Market Milk 75 

not-fat by an instrument called the lactometer, 
which is simply an accurate means of determining 
the weight of milk. 

Milk from cows known to be diseased, or from 
cows fifteen days before coming fresh can not 
legally be sold. After freshening, milk can be sold 
as soon as it attains a normal condition. It is il- 
legal to sell milk to which water or any other sub- 
stance has been added, or milk which has been ex- 
posed to disease-producing bacteria, or milk that 
has been stored, handled or transported in an un- 
clean or unsanitary manner. 

Cleanliness. The greatest handicap in the milk 
business is the difficulty of getting milk that is as 
clean as other food which people eat. It is not im- 
possible to do, but it is rarely done. In most all 
cities of the United States milk that meets the 
highest requirements as to cleanliness and sanita- 
tion is being sold for from 20 to 35 cents a quart. 
Such milk is guaranteed to be pure by a medical 
board and is labeled certified milk. There are vari- 
ous requirements in producing certified milk that 
need not all be explained here. But to the average 
consumer the main difference is that the producer 
of certified milk is as careful concerning cleanliness 



76 Stock and Stalks 

in milking and caring for the milk as a clean, re- 
spectable housekeeper is in making bread. In regu- 
lar market milk we do not require cleanliness up 
to the standard for certified milk, but all producers 
and dealers in milk should recognize and admit the 
truth that common milk is not nearly as clean as 
it should be. 

The public is well aware of this fact, and the de- 
mand for dairy products would be immeasurably 
increased if thousands of people did not feel an 
aversion to drinking milk because as they say, "It's 
so dirty." We can not go to the public and ask all 
we would like to have unless we, in turn, give them 
just what they want. The public wants clean milk 
and I believe that if milk improves in quality the 
public will use more of it. No person with dirty 
hands should ever milk a cow and use the milk for 
human food. A cow's udder should be washed. 
The hair on the udder and flanks should be chpped 
short, and to prevent dust and hair from getting 
into the milk, her flanks and udder should be 
slightly dampened before milking. A gunnysack 
cut up in pieces about 14 inches square makes a 
very good towel on which to dry the udder and the 



Market Milk 77 

milker's hands. A clean towel should be used for 
each milking. 

The cleanliness of milk is usually judged by fil- 
tering a small amount through a disc of cotton. 
This is called the sediment test. This test, in a 
measure determines the amount of filth and for- 
eign matter which milk contains. Sufficient strain- 
ing will make most any milk so that it will show 
a clean record on the sediment test. But remember 
that a strainer acts as a sort of pulverizer. Milk 
running through a strainer gradually dissolves and 
washes away the particles until they are so 
thoroughly in solution that we can not get them in 
a clarifying machine. We would prefer milk 
strained through a metal strainer only, but in 
many localities health departments require that it 
be filtered through cloth or cotton. Where this is 
required we oppose no objections. The greatest 
difficulty with cloth strainers is that they do not 
get washed clean enough. A farmer usually rinses 
out his cloth in cold water and hangs it up to dry. 
Sour strainers are about the first thing we look for 
on a farm where the people have been having trou- 
ble keeping milk sweet. 



78 Stock and Stalks 

Absorbent cotton is all right, providing no cloth 
is used with it, but that it be held between metal 
straining discs, or that the cloth be thrown away 
each time with the cotton. Since to throw away 
cotton strainers each time is expensive, I do not 
think the system is practical for general use. It is 
easier and far better to keep dirt from getting into 
the milk than to let everything go in and then try 
to get it all out again. 

Sanitation. Sanitation means "pertaining to 
health." Clean milk might be unsanitary for it 
might contain injurious bacteria. Bacteria are 
plants. To avoid infecting milk with bacteria 
which cause souring and decay we can not depend 
upon cleanliness alone. The first few streams of 
milk from each teat of the cow will be found al- 
ready infected to a considerable extent. In certi- 
fied dairies the first streams of milk are never used. 
When cows are not milked dry at each milking 
there is a considerable development of bacteria that 
takes place in the teats and udder. Careless milk- 
ers have their trouble starting before the milk 
leaves the udder. Various diseases infect the milk 
of the cow. Milk from cows with garget or dis- 
eased udders causes sore throats in children and 



Market Milk 79 

should never be used as food. Dirt that gets into 
milk is of itself objectionable, but it is also one of 
the greatest sources of infection. 

Milk utensils should be sterilized. This may be 
done by the use of a chlorine solution called Bacil- 
li-Kill, by boiling water, or by the direct rays of 
the . sun. Most sterilization is not perfect and 
even the dust particles in the air contain enough 
bacteria to, in a measure, re-seed any surface. 
Bacteria can not grow without moisture. If uten- 
sils are not washed perfectly and food particles are 
left for bacteria to grow on, there will immediately 
start a new development from the re-seeding that 
will take place after the sterilization. Tin cans can 
not be washed well enough to make them perfectly 
free from foodstuffs on which bacteria may live. 
When milk dealers put cream in cold storage, ex- 
pecting to hold it sweet for as long as two months 
they use cans that have never been used before. A 
metal surface is rough and I know of no way to 
wash a milk can as perfectly as a milk bottle. The 
milk utensils should be thoroughly cleaned with 
washing powder, rinsed thoroughly with boiling 
water, then carefully dried. In the operation of 
cleaning cans the most difficult thing to do in a fac- 



80 Stock and Stalks 

tory is to get the can properly dried. When it 
cools down there is likely to be a certain amount of 
moisture deposited on the inside of the can and 
there is always enough food left on which bacteria 
may grow if the can is moist. In milk plants we 
sterihze all equipment just before using. Cans 
washed and sterilized at the plant and used on the 
farm twenty-four or thirty-six hours later become 
rancid because of being shut with moist air in 
them. It is our ambition to sometime be able to 
send cans to the farmers that will remain perfectly 
sweet, dry and sterile, even if they are kept closed 
for a week. But now we must confess to imperfec- 
tion, and cans that get stale before being used are 
perhaps the greatest menace to our milk supply. 
If a farmer can set these cans in the sun with the 
lid off, it will help greatly. If he can scald them 
with boiling water just before he uses them, it 
will help even more. 

Some farmers have great difficulty in delivering 
milk once a day and having it sweet when it ar- 
rives at the plant. We have kept a bottle of certi- 
fied milk for more than three weeks in a refrigera- 
tor where the temperature is above forty degrees 
and at the end of that time it had not turned sour. 



Market Milk 81 

Such results can be only obtained by experts, but it 
is not difficult to become expert enough to always 
be able to sell milk that is in a good marketable 
condition, delivered once a day. 

Cooling Milk. The growth of bacteria in milk 
depends a great deal upon its cooling. Milk has a 
great tendency to take up bad odors, and its ten- 
dency to do this depends upon its temperature. 
Milk should be cooled within thirty minutes after it 
is drawn from the cow. If cooled below seventy de- 
grees immediately and kept at that temperature or 
below, there will be very little difficulty of milk 
souring, provided due care has been taken regard- 
ing sanitation and cleanliness. 

Well water temperature in this cHmate is usually 
fifty-four degrees. By pumping fresh water 
through a tank, having it overflow so that the 
warm water will flow off, it is easy in a short time 
to get milk as low as sixty-five degrees. When run- 
ning water is not available, it is better to stir the 
milk until it is as cold as it will get in such water 
as you have, then set the cans in a small tank of 
fresh water that can be pumped by hand if neces- 
sary. Many farmers use the stock tank to cool the 
milk in first, then use some half barrels cut off at 



82 Stock and Stalks 

a height so that the water can not overflow into the 
milk but that it will stand slightly higher than the 
milk in the cans. Use one half-barrel for each can 
of night's milk. In the morning cool the milk in 
the tank only. However, the most satisfactory ar- 
rangement would be to have a small engine with 
which fresh water may be pumped at milking time, 
and let the milk tank overflow into the stock tank 
until the milk is cooled and the tank is full of cold 
water. A tank should be divided by partitions 
made of slats running up and down so that a can 
partly filled may float without tipping over. It is 
not absolutely necessary that milk be uncovered 
while it is being cooled, but the cover prevents the 
milk from cooling as rapidly. Remember that 
warm water always rises. The cold water will be 
at the bottom of the tank. Some farmers divide 
their milk so that the cans will all float. The milk 
warms the water and the warm water rises above 
the level of the milk in the cans. Milk should al- 
ways be covered when left sitting by the road wait- 
ing for the hauler, and should always be covered 
in the wagon or truck. Wet the blanket or canvas 
that covers the milk. This helps to keep it cool. 



CHAPTER XL 

EXPERIMENTS BEING TRIED OUT ON OUR 
DAIRY FARM. 

On our farm we are equipping to produce certi- 
fied milk. This will be a new business for us. 
When we have had more experience along this line 
we may write up the results for publication. How- 
ever, none of our experiments are far enough along 
now for us to be justified in giving the results as 
final. 

Those things which would probably be of great- 
est interest to farmers are our small grain elevator, 
the layout of machinery to shell com, grind feed, 
cut and re-cut alfalfa and our facilities for handling 
manure. We use electric power which, so far as 
we know, is the most satisfactory power where it is 
available. The motor requires no firing up as does 
a steam engine, and no tinkering such as goes with 
the use of gasoline. The motors generally run when 
you want them to and as long as you want them to 
and give very little trouble. 



84 



Stock and Stalks 



Our ensilage cutter is permanently installed at 
one side of a driveway in the barn. It will fill three 
silos without re-setting. By the use of a re-cutting 
attachment with the ensilage cutter we make finely- 
chopped alfalfa of all the stems that the cows will 
not eat. Cattle will eat these stems after they are 




Showing arrangemient of machinery. The conveyor to the 
silage blower is just below the floor. Silage or cut hay drops 
from the ensilage cutter to this conveyor. Opposite the en- 
silage cutter is the feed grinder into which runs the grain 
spout from the corn sheller. The ground feed also flows to 
the conveyor and by shifting the spout of the corn sheller the 
shelled corn will go to the conveyor without being ground. 






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86 Stock and Stalks 

cut up fine and they make excellent feed for our de- 
livery horses. The blower (made by the American 
Harvester Company of Minneapolis) which we use 
for elevating is separate from the cutter. It is also 
used to elevate shelled corn, oats and ground feeds 
to bins overhead. The conveyor to this blower is 
slightly below the floor level so that ground feed 
will run from the feed grinder to the conveyor, so 
also will our shelled corn, or oats that we are un- 
loading from wagons, and the re-cut alfalfa. Every- 
thing goes to the blower and is distributed to dif- 
ferent bins by turning the spout. An ordinary en- 
silage cutter can be used as an elevator for grain 
just as well as the separate blower that we use. 

Our system of hauling manure is probably more 
original than our arrangement for handling feed. 
We do not shovel the manure out of this barn, 
neither do we push it out. We wash it out with a 
two-inch stream of water. The gutters slope from 
the ends of the barn toward the center, being two 
feet deep at the center of the barn and one foot 
deep at the ends. Over these gutters we have cast- 
iron grates to prevent a cow from slipping down. 
A ten-inch tile leads from the gutter to a large cess- 
pool outside of the barn and from this cess-pool we 



Experiments on Dairy Farm. 



87 




Showing the gutter behind the cows with some of the 
grates removed. The gutter is being filled with water. When 
full the cover to the opening to a 10-inch tile is removed and 
the rush of the water carries all with it. 



88 



Stock and Stalks 



pump the sewerage along a ridge to the highest 
ground of the farm and irrigate it down over the 
fields. We have an abundant water supply avail- 
able, cheap power, and hope this plan will prove a 
practical means of handling manure. So far it has 




Electric-driven sump pump with 3-inch intake and 2-inch 
discharge which pumps manure and water at the rate of 200 
gallons per minute. 



Experiments on Dairy Farm 89 

been a very easy matter to flush the manure from 
the gutters and our sewerage pump throws 200 gal- 
lons per minute through a four-inch pipe up the hill 
as far as we want to go. We use cut straw for bed- 
ding and run plenty of water in with the manure 
so the pump will not clog. The picture of the pump 
shown is taken from the catalogue of the American 
Well Works and does not represent our cess-pool 
but is similar to the outfit we use. 

Our water pump requires a ten horse-power 
motor and will throw 150 gallons per minute. 
Besides a means of getting manure hauled out, 
we expect to do some irrigating in dry weather. 
While running both the pump at the well and the 
sewerage pump we require about ten kilowatts of 
current per hour. This costs us about five cents 
per kilowatt. 

We have installed the King ventilating system. 
Where a large herd of cows are kept in a barn such 
a ventilating system is a great help. Our barn is 
warm and comfortable but not steamy and close. 

These systems cost a good deal of money and may 
not all prove practical. We are not urging that our 
example be followed but will be glad to give any of 
our readers such data as we may have concerning 



90 



Stock and Stalks 



the success of these operations. At our barn we 
pi'epare the feed for all of our delivery horses and 
we expect to keep sixty cows. The method of 
handling manure will eliminate most of the breed- 
ing places of flies. Since this milk will be used raw 
and is produced for babies especially, extra pre- 
cautions are necessary in our case. These things 
we have taken into consideration when planning so 




Interior of the barn showing large ventilating flues, 
the side of the room are the air-intakes. 



At 



Experiments on Dairy Farm 



91 



expensive a layout. In a few months we will know 
more about these systems and in a few years we 
will have a conclusive test made. Those who wish 
to drop in occasionally to see how we are getting 
along will be welcome. 



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Interior view of milk house showing sterilizing oven, cooler 
bottle filler and conveyor for cases. 



CHAPTER XII. 
DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW 

Even though I have a farm that at one time I 
went in debt for and which I paid for by milking 
cows, and even though I have spent more of my 
working years on a farm than in an office, I can 
not always pass as a farmer. At one time I at- 
tended a farmers' meeting where the city man was 
up for discussion and a fellow nudged me and said, 
"Old man, how do you like it? Haven't we got you 
city guys figured out about right?" I answered, 
"City people are just like country people in at least 
one respect. They are just as much inclined to 
think their own troubles are greater than any one 
else's." 

Farmers sometimes speak of themselves as the 
producers, and so, too, do the labor union men. 
Even the business men at their meetings are in- 
clined to pat themselves on the back and to take 
credit for a very liberal share in production. We 
all look at things from our own point of view. We 
have gone through certain experiences and have 



Points of View 93 

not experienced others. We can not all expect to be 
of the same opinion. 

But we all have the ability to understand each 
other when we are given the chance to see things 
as other people see them, and it is this understand- 
ing which I hope to promote as I write this brief 
chapter. I write this not as a farmer but as a city 
man giving opinions gradually formed in sev- 
eral years as a city milk distributor. 

To me all are producers alike. The man who 
sews the shoe for the miner who digs the ore that 
makes the plow that plows the field that raises the 
wheat that makes the bread that the grocer dis- 
tributes, does what is just as important but no 
more so than any other man or woman in the long 
line which production takes. If one may insist 
that his task forms the foundation, another man 
may claim that his forms the roof. But what is 
the difference? Without whom can we well get 
along ? 

We hear much about the "middle man" who is 
considered a luxury or rather an extravangance 
that ought not to be permitted. Well, I am one of 
those middle men and the thing does not look that 
way at all to me. I think that all we do for the 



94 Stock and Stalks 

people — all the service we render, is worth what we 
get for it. We middlemen have our troubles and 
call ourselves producers and are not in any way- 
conscious of being ''parasites/' 

What economic laws apply particularly to one set 
of people but do not apply to others down the line ? 
What makes one man's lot harder than that of an- 
other, and who really has the hardest row to hoe? 
What shall we do to the other fellow to keep him 
from crime and have justice? These are questions 
answered in as many different ways as there are 
people with different viewpoints. Do we doubt 
the patriotism of the club women in cities who de- 
cided to boycott eggs and milk to bring down the 
price just at the time when these commodities were 
very hard to produce and the price already too low 
for the cost ? If we do, it is because we do not un- 
derstand their viewpoint and their lack of informa- 
tion on which to form different conclusions. 

A few years ago I often used a certain argu- 
ment which now I do not use any more because 
now I am over on the other side, as they say. 
From the other side of the fence the proposition 
does not look at all the same. The argument is 
that the farmer sells his produce in town at the 



Points of View 95 

price the city man is willing to pay and then must 
buy at the price that the city man will sell for. 
Since the city man does all the price fixing the 
farmer gets the worst end of the bargain all of the 
time. 

I have no doubt that various markets are 
juggled by speculators of various kinds and that 
there are many exploiters in cities who have their 
knives whetted for any one's meat they can get. 
The world has not yet worked out its complete 
salvation. We all have a few suggestions that we 
would not mind making to the party in power. 
But of this I feel sure, the majority of business 
men make their living by rendering service the 
same as do farmers. They are up against proposi- 
tions that are a good deal alike. I have not no- 
ticed much difference. I have to pay my farmers 
a good or better bargain than they can get any 
where else. In the same way I must compete for 
labor. I must render the best service the customer 
can get for the money. After I do all of these 
things, if there is anything left I may have it, and 
my luck at different times is good, bad, and all 
shades between good and bad. All of us city busi- 
ness men would make more if we could. You can 



96 Stock and Stalks 

at least credit us with being ambitious, but more of 
us fail than do business men in the country. 

At this time probably half of the factories in the 
United States are closed down, banks are prac- 
tically all in a critical condition, stores are adver- 
tising merchandise at half price and yet no one 
seems to buy and the farmers' troubles need no de- 
scription. What shall we do? Well, I know some 
things we should not do that I can illustrate with 
a story. 

A man in Arizona looked down over a ledge of 
rocks on a cliff and saw several rattle snakes sun- 
ning themselves on a ledge thirty feet below. Hav- 
ing a small pistol he shot a bullet down among 
them. Immediately there started a battle at the 
end of which all the rattlesnakes were bitten. In 
a few minutes they were all dead. An examina- 
tion showed that the bullet had apparently not hit 
any snake. The snakes had all lost their lives as a 
result of a misunderstanding. 

I heard Major General Wood make a speech in 
favor of universal military training but his argu- 
ment had a different meaning for me than he in- 
tended it should have. He argued that there will 
be war as long as people have honest differences of 



Points of Vieiv 97 

opinion — therefore always be prepared for war. 
To me it seems that since no amount of preparation 
and war equipment can insure peace we must pre- 
vent that honest difference of opinion. We must 
keep with all people a better understanding. Wars 
are misunderstandings and well meaning people 
murder each other because the misunderstandings 
are kept up with censorship and propaganda. Peo- 
ple are armed with poisons more deadly than the 
rattlesnake and all will fight at the drop of the hat 
if they feel that they are wronged. What then 
brings any hope of things better? It is the spirit 
that says **Come let us reason together" that 
points the way to "Peace on earth, good will to- 
ward men." 

There is one thing that all should remember and 
that is that we are all of us the public. There is 
no corporation ''without a heart and without a soul" 
more heartless than the public. All men strive to 
do the thing the public wants most to have done 
for only those who please the public's fancy get 
paid for their efforts. The public pays no one in- 
terest on investment. It pays no one for time or 
effort spent. It pays for the service it wants at the 
time it wants it and all who misjudge the public 



98 Stock and Stalks 

demand may get nothing. Any new process or new 
invention puts many people out of business for the 
public turns coldly from the old to the new service 
v/hich it more desires. If we produce too much of 
anything the price always goes below cost. Where 
there is an undersupply of any thing, there is the 
best market and the more profitable business. So it 
is that by paying or withholding the price this great 
Dame Public keeps all courting her favor and doing 
the things she wants most to have done. She wins 
with every winner and then taxes his income, and 
lets the loser lose alone. 

But although we are all up against the same gen- 
eral laws that govern business there is a difference 
between farming and most other business. A con- 
tractor will build a building for us if we agree to 
p?y a price that he figures will pay his cost plus a 
profit. Otherwise he will not do the work. Con- 
tracting is supposed to be a somewhat hazardous 
business but it is not so risky as farming for the 
builder knows before he starts what price he is to 
get. A farmer can not tell until he is ready ,to 
market his crop what the market will be. The 
farmer must pay the cost, hoping. Weather has a 



Points of View 99 ] 

great deal to do with results in farming operations ! 

and that makes the business more risky. j 

Business men in cities as a rule can work much ' 

closer to their pay checks. This makes it possible : 
for them to come much nearer a system of always 

getting cost plus a profit. Manufacturers usually ' 

aim to take orders ahead of their output so that \ 

knowing their cost and having their goods already I 

sold at a profit leaves them comparatively clear ] 

sailing. How the farmer can get on the same basis i 

I do not know. I 

But city business is not all a round of pleasure, 

for city competition is keen. If one farmer raises i 

forty bushels of corn per ace and another can raise ! 

sixty,- each receives compensation in proportion to j 

his crop. But if one merchant had that much ad- j 

vantage over his competitor the unfortunate one | 

would be put clear out of business. Customers to I 

a merchant are as valuable as pigs are to a farmer 1 

and it is perfectly legal to get the other fellow's ' 
customers in broad daylight. So we in competitive 

business keep busier than some people think. \ 

I have often been asked what I think of farmers' \ 
organizations. Well, most business men in other 

lines of business have associations. They usually i 



100 stock and Stalks 

result in some good. It is those who expect too 
much that are disappointed. So simple a thing as 
an organization can not cure all of the difficulties 
in farming. Some farmers in Kentucky organized 
to boost the tobacco market by agreeing among 
themselves to plant fewer acres. After the agree- 
ment many expected a high price for tobacco and 
planted more acres. This is about the kind of co- 
operation we all have learned to expect in associa- 
tions where money interests are involved. These 
farmers were right, however, in realizing that in 
order to boost the market they had to limit the 
supply of the product. The law of supply and de- 
mand always works. It works to the advantage of 
him who can limit the supply or can increase the 
demand. 

Let me tell you how a trust operates. There is 
an agreement to fix prices and production is limited 
to what will sell at the fixed price. Then there are 
fights made against any one outside of the combi- 
nation who undertakes to produce that line of 
goods. The trust magnate knows well that to con- 
trol a market he must limit the amount of goods 
for sale by combining to fight competition. With- 
out that feature trusts would be harmless. A trust 



Points of View 101 

is a "combination in restraint of trade" — a fighting 
organization. Common business men are not afraid 
to compete with trusts. It is always the trust 
that is afraid. To compete means to race. Trusts 
always want to hamstring the fellows against whom 
they are racing. 

To go back to farmers' organizations, on account 
of the nature of their business farmers can never 
successfully organize to fight down competition of 
other farmers and prevent them from producing. 
They can not then create an artificial market. 
Others can sometimes combine to take advantage of 
farmers. Farmers can never *'get even." But 
here is a truth that many do not realize and it is 
that although some may have a less difficult busi- 
ness than farming, not one person out of a thou- 
sand can avoid competition or has any unfair ad- 
vantage over other people. Those who would differ 
from this statement could only change the figures 
in the proportion. Change them as you like, and 
yet we must agree that it is a good thing that a ma- 
jority must earn a living in which there is no graft 
for they will stand for truth and fairness in the 
land. We want freedom in the country and there 
cannot be freedom without fair competition — equal 



102 Stock and Stalks 

opportunities for all as nearly as the law can in- 
sure them. 

Where co-operation among farmers can increase 
efficiency they should co-operate. The same is true 
of any other business. For any one to co-operate 
in a legitimate way for legitimate purpose is al- 
ways a legitimate thing to do. Co-operation need 
not interfere with free competition or fair play. 
I have no word of warning to give to farmers' or- 
ganizations that I would not apply as well to others. 
But I have a warning that I would like to sound 
to all the world. Beware of him who accuses all 
others of guilt. Beware of him who sees only bad 
in the world. There are those ''reformers," they 
may be called, who would poison us against our 
fellows. Watch closely the suggestions of such. 
Test their advice by the golden rule. A propaganda 
of hate is never needed in a good cause. Peace on 
earth can only come by fairness and good will. We 
need each other's point of view. 



